Memorial Day memories: The stories of five local men who did not return from war
May 29—Monday is Memorial Day, the day we honor American servicemen and women who never made it home.
Unlike Veterans Day, Memorial Day is, by design, more somber and more solemn. Ceremonies on this day are usually held at cemeteries here in Kern County and across the nation.
Local veteran advocates sometimes worry that Americans are losing sight of the true purpose of Memorial Day: to honor those servicemen and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
"We must continue to honor and remember the men and women who gave their lives in service to our nation. We must consider it our duty to never forget them," said Marc Sandall, who has been involved for years in organizing and volunteering to help with local Memorial Day ceremonies and other events supporting local veterans, past and present.
Five Kern County residents who were killed in action in five wars are remembered here on this Memorial Day.
Pfc. Joseph Robert Livermore
U.S. Marine Corps, World War II
Seventy-six years after he was killed in hand-to-hand combat, the remains of U.S. Marine Pfc. Joseph Robert Livermore finally came home to Bakersfield in 2019.
Livermore, an East Bakersfield High School football player, was still a teenager when he enlisted in the Marines just days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was only 21 when he was killed by an enemy bayonet, fighting on the heavily fortified, Japanese-held island of Betio.
According to a presidential unit citation awarded to the 2nd Marine Division for outstanding performance in combat during the seizure and occupation of the Japanese-held Atoll of Tarawa in late November 1943, the amphibious landing by some 18,000 Marines went terribly wrong.
And yet the Americans prevailed.
"Forced by treacherous coral reefs to disembark from their landing craft hundreds of yards off the beach, the Second Marine Division (Reinforced) became a highly vulnerable target for devastating Japanese fire," the citation reads.
Livermore survived the landing, but two days later, on Nov. 22, 1943, the young Marine was fatally wounded by an enemy's bayonet. He was buried on the island, along with nearly 1,000 other Marines.
After the war, when the remains of servicemen were brought home, Livermore was not among them. The location of his remains and the remains of other Marines would continue to be a mystery for nearly eight decades until efforts by the nongovernmental organization History Flight located a burial site.
On July 30, 2019, after more than 75 years of uncertainty, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified Livermore's remains.
On his pinky finger, a ring engraved with his initials was documented in photographs. In what was left of his pocket, a New Zealand sixpence coin was recovered.
Roosevelt Clark
U.S. Army, Korean War
Like the Livermore family, the family of Bakersfield High Driller-turned-U.S. Army infantryman Roosevelt Clark waited more than 60 years to see his remains arrive home from a distant battlefield in North Korea.
Clark, who grew up in Arvin and attended BHS, was reported missing in action in late November 1950, while fighting with the 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, in North Korea.
He was just 18.
Decades passed with little word. Clark was eventually declared dead, and members of his extended family began to accept the possibility that their loved one's remains might never be found or identified.
But 62 years after he was lost, Clark's remains finally did come home to Bakersfield in 2013.
On Nov. 25, 1950, American forces, including Clark's 35th Infantry Regiment, were overwhelmed as elements of the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces entered the war, attacking allied positions in North Korea.
Clark's physical remains were finally identified through DNA analysis.
On Feb. 27, 2013, Clark's remains were flown, with full military escort and honors, to Los Angeles International Airport. From there he was carried by hearse to Hillcrest Mortuary in Bakersfield.
David Jackson, then the commander of the Kern County chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, was waiting at Hillcrest that day in 2013 when the procession arrived.
"No fallen serviceman should come home without someone there to receive him and honor him," Jackson said at the time.
Nearly 300 people showed up to do just that.
Spc. Leonard Alvarado
U.S. Army, Vietnam War
East Bakersfield High School alumnus and Vietnam War fighter Leonard Alvarado was a legend among the men in his platoon.
Now he's a legend across the country.
Nearly 45 years after his death, Alvarado was awarded the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony for the valor and selflessness he displayed the night of Aug. 12, 1969.
According to battlefield accounts of the firefight, the 22-year-old was wounded yet continued advancing and firing into a fusillade of enemy bullets and explosions, silencing enemy emplacements and possibly saving the lives of many of his comrades.
"He was the scariest guy I have ever seen," remembered Steve Koppenhoefer, a first lieutenant and Alvarado's platoon leader in the summer of '69.
Alvarado was tall, Koppenhoefer remembered, maybe 6 feet, 4 inches. He looked like a pretty regular guy when he wasn't in the bush.
"In the jungle, he had scimitar sideburns and coal-black eyes. He was intimidating," Koppenhoefer recalled during a phone interview from his home in Seneca, Ill.
"People in my platoon loved to tell stories about Alvarado."
Following his death, the east Bakersfield native was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest military award that can be given to a member of the U.S. Army.
But Alvarado's medal, and the medals of nearly two dozen other veterans, both living and dead, were upgraded from the Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for a member of the armed forces.
According to his citation for bravery and Koppenhoefer's memory of that night, Alvarado was serving as a rifleman with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, when another platoon was caught in a bad situation near a French-built road known as Highway 14. The radio calls became frantic.
Early in the fight, Alvarado took his M60 machine gun and his ammo bearer and went after the enemy, breaking up the attack and saving many lives.
"Possibly including mine," recalled Koppenhoefer, who was awarded a Silver Star for his own actions that night.
As Alvarado and his ammo bearer moved forward, an enemy grenade exploded nearby, wounding and stunning him. According to the citation, Alvarado killed the soldier just as another enemy barrage wounded him again.
He began maneuvering forward alone. "Though repeatedly thrown to the ground by exploding satchel charges, he continued advancing and firing," the citation reads.
When Koppenhoefer saw Alvarado staggering back without his weapon, he ran out to help — but it was too late.
As green tracers zipped by, Lt. Koppenhoefer and another man pulled their wounded comrade to cover.
"I am positive I heard his last words," Koppenhoefer remembered. "He was in his final moments."
The platoon leader had seen death before, but he was truly shocked.
"He seemed invincible," he said.
Maj. Jason E. George
U.S. Army Reserve, Iraq War
Jason George was a proud Tehachapi son with a room full of trophies. If there was a prize, academic or sporting, George went after it.
Growing up, he won the Pinewood Derby. In high school, he had an internship with NASA at Edwards Air Force Base.
George played tennis, baseball, soccer and basketball. He was an Eagle Scout, and after a year at Cal State Bakersfield, he was appointed to West Point by then-U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas.
At West Point, he was an undefeated boxer. After graduating, he served eight years in the U.S. Army. After leaving the service in 2002, he earned an MBA at the University of Michigan. George was working for a consulting firm in Chicago that specialized in helping hospitals and clinics save money by becoming more efficient.
Then, with the country at war, he was called up to serve again, this time as an Army reservist assigned to the 252nd Combined Arms Battalion, Fayetteville, N.C.
On May 21, 2009, Maj. George was killed in Baghdad while on foot patrol in the Dora district. A suicide bomber exploded an improvised explosive device and killed three American soldiers along with at least 25 Iraqi civilians.
Jason George was 38. He had been in Iraq just 16 days.
Sgt. Adan Gonzales Jr.
U.S. Marine Corps, Afghanistan War
Warrior and humanitarian.
The dual role may seem like a contradiction in terms, but it never was for U.S. Marine Sgt. Adan Gonzales Jr.
The Bakersfield son, grandson, brother, husband and father of three was killed Aug. 7, 2011, during a fierce battle with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
As part of his sniper platoon, Gonzales carried a SAW machine gun, capable of firing a fearsome 1,000 rounds per minute. Yet to the end of his life, he balanced his role as a combat Marine with his strong desire to help the desperately poor families he came in contact with in that war-weary region.
In a letter mailed home a few months before his death, the 28-year-old asked for prayers to protect his comrades in arms, as well as for "the innocent children that have to live, day after day, in this war zone.
"They are born innocent into war," Gonzales wrote in longhand.
"Our gun bursts wake them up at night, and I can hear them crying after a firefight," he continued. "It haunts me to know that they frequently become victims of our bombs and missile strikes. They are no different from my own children, and have a God-given right to live in peace and happiness.
"As for me, don't worry about me," he wrote. "I am in God's hands and I believe he will see me through this."
Marine Cpl. Madison Jefferson, of De Queen, Ark., met Adan in 2010 in sniper indoctrination, a weeklong challenge to determine which Marines could endure the hardships of being a sniper.
Gonzales had something not every Marine had: the ability to be a combat-ready Marine when need be — and the ability to "flip a switch" and let compassion and charity rule the day.
There's a cultural and a language barrier between the Marines and the "locals," Jefferson said. "Sgt. Gonzales would go out of his way to break down that barrier," he said.
Jefferson was in Afghanistan with Gonzales in June 2011 when their unit was ambushed.
Jefferson took a bullet to the leg and tumbled into an irrigation canal. The corpsman — a medic — pulled him out and began trying to patch him up. Jefferson looked up to see Gonzalez and the other men moving in to protect him.
"I remember seeing the whole team make a 360 around me and doc," Jefferson remembered.
The fighting was still fierce when Jefferson was put aboard a helicopter. He looked around, knowing he was done, and knowing he probably wouldn't see his team until it finished its deployment.
One of the last things he saw was Sgt. Gonzales.
"I remember seeing Gonzo ... up on one knee with his SAW," he said, "doing his work."
That's what Gonzales was doing two months later when he was fatally struck by enemy fire.
"I do believe God is with me on these long patrols through the poppy fields ..." Sgt. Gonzales wrote in his beautiful letter home. "I know he is with me now and will be waiting for me hereafter."
Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.
